


homemade trophies (store-bought cake)

by ohmygodwhy



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Birthday Presents, Friendship/Love, Gen, M/M, Misunderstandings, Oikawa Tooru's Birthday, Sappy Ending, i cant believe thats a tag ajsjffnlsnlj
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 12:11:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11554953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmygodwhy/pseuds/ohmygodwhy
Summary: When Oikawa wakes up on the morning of his eighteenth birthday, he doesn’t have any happy birthday texts.or: oikawa has a birthday crisis and all his friends are The Worst™





	homemade trophies (store-bought cake)

**Author's Note:**

> happy bday oikawa i love you sm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this is unedited bc i wanted to get it out on his bday so it's kinda rushed but!!! i'll come back and edit it later i just wanted to express my Appreciation for this wonderful boy,,,,,im blessed,

 

When Oikawa wakes up on the morning of his eighteenth birthday, he doesn’t have any happy birthday texts. 

Okay, maybe not nothing at _all_ , but the first thing he does when he wakes up that morning is check his phone, and there isn’t one single text—he blinks blearily up at the screen and sees no birthday Skype messages either, no birthday snapchats, not one single anything at all—from Iwaizumi or the rest of the volleyball team. 

His sister sent him a messy paragraph with a lot of hearts, probably working the nightshift, and he’d gotten a few Instagram message from a few girls or boys in his class, but there was nothing from Iwaizumi, nothing from Mattsun or Makki—and he’s always had that competition thing with Iwaizumi going, right, and it had extended to who could send the very earliest birthday text possible, right on the midnight mark, so he had expected at least that. 

But there’s. Zero. Zip. Nothing. 

So, logically, his first thought is that maybe they were all in some tragic accident overnight. Maybe they all fell asleep early, or fell into a coma. Maybe he and the other people who wished him a happy birthday are all off by one day—Mandala Effect, crossed momentarily into another universe (he swears to god it’s happened to him before). Quickly, he clicks his phone on to check the date, but nope—still July 20th. 

Frowning, he puts his phone face down on the pillow, waits a few moments, and checks it again. 

Still nothing. His heart sinks into his stomach, thick with disappointment. Did they really forget?

Iwaizumi has been the first person to wish him happy birthday every year since before they were ten. They used to climb into each other’s windows at midnight before they got phones. It’s not ridiculous to expect at least as much this year from, you know, his actual boyfriend. He frowns deeper. 

Maybe his phone somehow deleted all the messages, he thinks as he sits up, rubbing at his eyes—phones get glitchy all the time, right? Maybe their phones are the ones that went all glitchy. Maybe their wifi is so slow that the texts still haven’t sent yet. 

Grudgingly, he decides to go with that. He rolls out of bed to eat a quick breakfast and go on his morning jog, and thinks that they’d better buy him some good sweets or something for lunch to make up for it. 

 

They do not buy him sweets for lunch. 

The whole thing goes like this: he walks to school—alone, without Iwaizumi because apparently he’d gone ahead early, which hasn’t happened in years??—strolls through the front gates, thanks a few people for their birthday wishes, makes a beeline for the gym, expecting heartfelt apologies and love, and all he gets is the usual good morning, with a few ‘senpai’s tacked on by the first years.

It catches him so off guard that he changes in stunned silence. He doesn’t—well he doesn’t actually say anything, because he doesn’t wanna be That Person, but still feels the weight of his confusion pushing down on his shoulders. Not even the coach says anything when they start their warmups—and like, Irihata isn’t the most lovable of people, but he usually says something. He let the third years rent out the gym in December to throw a surprise party for Kyoutani even though he knew just as well as the rest of them that it was a Bad Idea. 

Did all of them really _forget?_

It haunts him all through the short practice—always short in the mornings and stretching on later after school. He can’t seem to run as fast as usual or hit as hard. He thinks he catches Iwaizumi or the others glancing at him a few times, but if he’s acting weird, they don’t say anything, which is weird because Iwaizumi always says something. 

“Oh hey, Oikawa,” someone calls when they’re all throwing on their uniforms back on in the locker room afterwards. 

Heart soaring—god, _finally_ , he thinks—he glances up quickly; it’s Hanamaki, “Yeah?” he asks expectantly.

“I was wondering if you had that math homework done?”

His soaring heart just—falls the fuck out of the sky, “The—math homework?” 

“Yeah.”

Oikawa catches himself, tries not to look off-put, “Oh, uh. Yeah, I have most of it.”

Makki opens his mouth to say something else, but Iwaizumi cuts him off, “Maybe you should do your own homework for once—isn’t math your second period?”

A few people laugh. Makki turns away to shoot something back, but by then, Oikawa has stopped listening, packing up the rest of his things quickly and throwing a goodbye over his shoulder. He doesn’t know if anyone even hears it.

 

It’s a nice day today, he muses as he walks across campus. Not too hot, the sun a nice presence in the sky but not burning everything below it like it does some years. He should feel lucky for the good weather—god knows he’s spent hours of his life complaining about how hot it could get on his birthday every year—but he doesn’t.

Honestly, he just feels cheated—the sky can be all nice today but his friends can’t? It almost feels like the sun is mocking him, all happy and bright while Oikawa feels like he’s being rained on all over—the sky should be cloudy today. It should reflect his mood. 

He’s still halfway in shock, he thinks, so it’s not his fault when he knocks shoulders with another boy walking in the opposite direction. He doesn’t have anything in his hands, but the boy does, books and papers spilling all over the ground. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, biting back a curse and squatting down to help the guy pick it all back up, “I’m just a little out of it, I guess.” 

“It’s okay, no harm done” the boy says easily, and soon he’s on his way again with a quick thank you.

“Actually, can I ask you a question?” he calls out on impulse before he gets too far away, stopping the boy mid-stride, “Do you know what the date is today?”

They boy blinks, but nods and says, “The 20th, I think.”

Heart sinking, Oikawa nods back, “It’s my birthday today.” he says absently. 

“Oh, happy birthday,” the boy says, confused but not unkind.

“Thank you,” Oikawa says, and leaves the boy behind to make his way slowly across the courtyard to his next class. 

 

A girl gives him a little box of chocolates with a bow on top when he gets to class, and the homeroom teacher gives him a small smile. He thanks the girl and smiles back and feels fake and ungrateful because he knows these things should make him happy—and he is grateful—but they don’t. All he can think about is the milk bread Hanamaki bought him for lunch last year and the way Iwaizumi smiled at him when they walked to school together and how he hadn’t gotten any of that today. 

At this point, he would take anything from any of them, as long it was at least an acknowledgment. Maybe they’d all forgotten to get presents and were too ashamed to tell him and that was why they were avoiding the subject. He could deal with that, he’d be fine with not getting anything as long as they actually told him about it. 

Sighing, he fiddles with the bow on the cute little box and tries to pay attention to what the teacher is saying. 

 

The point is, they do not buy him sweets for lunch. Oikawa steals the tomatoes out of Iwaizumi’s bento, but that happens everyday. Iwaizumi takes some of Oikawa’s food in retaliation, but that happens everyday, too. The four of them sneak up onto the roof to eat lunch, but they do that every Thursday, so that’s not really anything special, either. If he tries hard enough, he can almost pretend it is. 

Lunch comes and goes like normal, like today isn’t the day that Oikawa becomes an Adult. If anything, he’d expected some jab at how _there’s no way he could be an adult because he acts five years old all the time_ , etc, etc, and he would swat at whoever said it but laugh because he knew it was joke, but no, not even that. 

They barely tease him at all, actually. Usually, that would make him happy, but today it just makes him feel even further out of the loop. 

“You busy after school today?” Oikawa asks, because he’s going out to a Special Birthday Dinner with his sister later but he still wants to do something.

“Yeah, sorry,” Iwaizumi says absently. Oikawa blinks so hard it hurts his eyes.

“Doing _what?_ ” he asks, incredulous, “You’re never busy.”

Iwaizumi just shrugs, the absolute asshole, like he isn’t stomping all over Oikawa’ heart right now, “My mom needs me to run some errands for her later.”

“What errands?”

The bastard shrugs again, “Y’know, grocery shopping and shit.”

“Your mom doesn’t work today, why can’t she do them herself?” 

Iwaizumi raises an eyebrow at his tone, and Oikawa flushes, glancing away. He loves Iwaizumi’s mom. 

“Whatever,” he mumbles, glaring at his bento; he can feel three pairs of eyes on him, and he flushes deeper, “Have fun, I guess.”

Whatever gods there are up in the sky either hats him or love him, because the others ignore his outburst and move the conversation along like he never said a thing. They never do that. For all that they joke around, Makki and Matsun are nice people, and they always take the time to talk shit out, and always feel bad when they take jokes too far or anything like that. 

Oikawa picks a his food for the rest of the lunch period, picking more aggressively every time he feels someone glance at him. 

When the bell finally rings, it’s almost a relief. 

 

No one says anything at practice after school, either. He’s kind of given up hope at this point. He hopes vaguely as he sets the ball to Kindaichi that this is just some horrible dream. He’s always been afraid of being forgotten. 

By the time everyone is packing up, Oikawa feels like going to bed and sleeping for the next three years, just to spite everyone. God, they’ll think, guilty and sad, if only we remembered Oikawa’s birthday, maybe this tragedy would’ve never happened. 

He’s halfway out the door—it’s the second year’s turn to pack up the net today—when “Oikawa,” Irihata calls out. Oikawa glances over, “You mind cleaning up today? The second years have detention, and I have a meeting.”

Oikawa blinks, “Yahaba and Watari have detention?” because he knows Kyoken’s pissed off plenty of teachers before—Yahaba probably has it in him, petty as he is, but Watari? He’s an angel. 

Irihata just nods, “They got roped into a fight or something, unfortunately. I didn’t get all the details.”

“Do I have to clean up by _myself_?”

The coach gestures to the empty gym—Iwaizumi left without him!—and Oikawa decides that whatever gods there are in the sky definitely hate him.

The coach throws a thank you over his shoulder as he leaves, and then Oikawa is alone. There are still volleyballs everywhere because everyone on the team is lazy and the worst and the nets are still up. Oikawa sighs.

He has enough experience packing the volleyballs away by himself, his extra practice sometimes keeping him late into the night, but he hasn’t had to do it alone in ages. Iwaizumi was always there to drag his ass back home before things got out of hand.

Iwaizumi isn’t here now, Oikawa thinks bitterly, staring down at the ball in his hands. 

He sighs again, sounding like an award-worthy damsel in distress, but he doesn’t care. He’s in distress. No one remembered his birthday and now he’s cleaning up the gym by himself. 

Tossing another ball into the cart, he frowns, lips drawing up into a pout. 

He’d given everyone fair warning in advance, he thinks, enough time to get a nice gift or even just a card, because he didn’t wanna be the kind of person who dropped the ‘oh hey, it’s my birthday tomorrow by the way’ and expected people to scramble to get them something last moment. Had he given them the wrong date somehow? Did he talk about it too much, and annoy them into ignoring it completely?

Oh god, he thinks, volleyball tucked against his chest, he probably _did._ No one had actively _ignored_ him today, but Iwaizumi and the rest of the third years had been a little more distant than usual, in a subtle way.

Did they not like him anymore? Was that what was going on? God, what if they really did _forget?_ Was he that irrelevant to them—to _Iwaizumi?_ They hadn’t been dating all that long, but they’ve been friends for years, so it makes sense that he would get tired of him pretty quickly. There’s nothing new or exciting about him.

Across the gym, his phone buzzes. He jumps at the sudden sound, dropping the ball in his hands, faintly registering it bounce and roll away. He ignores it in favor of rushing over to the bench. 

He just about goddamn cries when he sees who the text is from. 

_Happy Birthday, Oikawa,_ stupid damn _Ushijima_ had typed out, _I hope your day has been well._

He turns and half-heartedly kicks the nearest volleyball across the gym. 

“ _Ushiwaka_ wishes me a happy birthday,” he gripes to himself as he goes to pick the damn thing back up, “But my own teammates can’t? How’d he even _know_ it was my birthday today, anyway?”

By now he knows he’s pouting, sulking like a child, but he thinks he has a good, valid reason to sulk. He’s not even that excited for his birthday dinner anymore—he’d been looking forward to it all week, too.

God, maybe they really do hate him. He always knew this day would come, eventually. He doesn’t think he’s ever been a very good person. 

When everything is put away, he slings his bag over his shoulder, flicks the lights off, and starts on his walk home.

 

The weather still has the nerve to be all nice, even though Oikawa feels the opposite of that. There’s a nice, light breeze in the air, and the stars are just starting to show up in the sky. He’s always loved the stars, and not even those cheer him up right now.

He’ll just tell his sister he’s not in the mood to go out tonight, he decides as he drags his feet up the front steps, in fact, she can go out without him if she wants to, since no-one else wants to do anything with him anyways. His mom is out of town tonight, so he can wallow in self-pity as long as he wants. 

He opens the door, pulls his shoes off, switches the light on and just about has a goddamn heart attack. 

“Surprise!” like a million people yell. He flinches back at the sound, eyes blown wide. 

Iwaizumi is there, smiling like he hasn’t just almost killed him, and so is Hanamaki and Matsukawa and his sister and Takeru and he thinks he even catches a glimpse of Kyoutani’s bumblebee hair holy shit??

He maybe tries to say something like what?????? but is cut off by his sister’s arm thrown over his shoulder and Iwaizumi ruffling his hair and three people trying to talk at once. 

“You,” he starts, and the three people who were trying to talk stop to listen for the first time all day, “You _jerks!_ ” 

“What?” Iwaizumi balks. 

Oikawa knocks Iwaizumi’s hand off of his head, “Do you have any idea what you put me through!?” he’s not even mad, not really, there are too many things going through his head and he’s pretty sure he’s smiling but _still,_ “I thought everyone forgot because they hated me!”

And then Iwaizumi is laughing and “This is not a _joke_ , Iwa-chan!” Oikawa screeches, wiping tears from his eyes, but he’s laughing too, “I thought I was gonna die!”

“You’re so dramatic, Captain,” Hanamaki says somewhere, but he’s laughing too so Oikawa can let the slander go this time. 

_“You’re_ dramatic,” he shoots back, “Everyone was so mean, all day—what was I supposed to think?”

“Maybe that we were throwing you the surprise party you always complain about not getting,” Iwaizumi says, throwing an arm over his shoulder and pulling him against him. 

Oikawa flushes, “You could’ve at least told me happy birthday!”

“Happy Birthday!” at least six people yell, and then Oikawa is laughing again because he’s so stupid for thinking his friends would ever forget about him and his friends are so stupid for thinking he wouldn’t get upset about the complete lack of birthday wishes. 

Someone throws a cheap plastic crown on his head and someone else shoots bunch of confetti at him because they’re all animals.

“I hate all of you,” he laughs. 

Iwaizumi presses a kiss to his cheek, “No you don’t,” he says over Mattsun’s fake gagging noises—single people are always so bitter, Oikawa thinks vaguely, smiling. 

“You’re the worst,” he insists anyways, “Do you at least have cake or something? I’m starving.”

They do have cake—it’s ice cream cake, too, which Iwaizumi and Kyoutani hate because they’re boring and have no taste but Oikawa loves, and it’s probably the best ice cream cake he’s ever had in his life. Watari says he was planning on baking one himself but he got the recipe wrong and had to buy a store-bought one anyways. It makes Oikawa smile. 

He gets at least ten packets of milk bread tossed at him afterwards. Even Kyoutani bought him one—he won’t look him in the eye when he hands it to him, but he still bought it. Oikawa is almost moved to tears. 

Kindaichi, the poor soul, didn’t know what to get him so he ended up with a box of tic-tacs and a sweater with a cat pun written across the chest. Oikawa loves it. Kunimi brought him an envelope with a birthday card and some money and called it a day—simple yet elegant, Oikawa says, and Kunimi smiles. 

He’s really hoping his sister will do that cliche ‘blindfold someone and take them outside and press the keys of a brand new car into their hand and watch them freak out’ thing, because he thinks he could play the role perfectly but, sadly, she doesn’t. She does give him a vintage-looking star wars poster—“I figured you could put it up in your apartment when you go to college soon,” she says. It’s not as good as a car, and reminds him of the looming graduation he’s been trying to ignore, but he loves it anyways. 

The very last thing he gets is apparently a ~collective gift~ from the team, which could either be great or something horrible. When he pulls it out, he can’t decide which one it is. 

It’s not very big, and not very official-looking, especially since he’s held one of the real things before, but the little plastic award still makes his breath catch. Best Captain Award, it reads, nicely handwritten—probably Yahaba, he thinks vaguely—and he feels something uncomfortably hot behind his eyes. 

“We never went to nationals,” he says, just to break the silence; his voice breaks along with it.

“Yeah, well,” Iwaizumi shrugs, “We thought you deserved that anyways. You’re the best captain we could’ve asked for.” 

Oikawa laughs, some kind of wet sound, and rubs at his eyes, “And you guys call me sappy,” he says, because he has to keep at least some of his dignity. Lord knows he barely has any left around these assholes. “Thank you,” quieter, this time. 

Mattsun throws an arm over his shoulder, “Consider it payment for all those times you payed for lunch,” and then the meaningful mood is broken.

Oikawa shoves him off, “No way, you still owe me for all that, you pig.”

Mattsun laughs. Oikawa holds the plastic award closer to his chest. He feels loved. 

 

“I’m sorry I made you feel so bad,” Iwaizumi says later, the two of them sprawled in Oikawa’s bed after everyone else has left, “I didn’t mean to, I just wanted to keep all this a surprise.”

It’s sincere, and a little worried, soft in the way Iwaizumi only gets when it’s the two of them; Oikawa smiles into the curve of Iwaizumi’s collarbone, “It’s okay,” he says, “You made up for it.”

“You sure?”

“Mhm,” he nods, shifting closer, curling into his boyfriend’s side, “It was really nice, I loved it.”

He feels Iwaizumi smile into his hair, “Okay, good,” he says, and presses a kiss to the top of Oikawa’s forehead. “Happy Birthday, Oikawa.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> with every comment comes another bday present for the boy,,


End file.
